Rayale’s Indifference
To Somaliland’s Independence And Security

EDITORIAL

Ordinary Somalilanders have been following the recent developments in neighboring Somalia with deep interest and anxiety. The takeover of Mogadishu and the entire Banadir region by Hassan Dahir Aweys’ men in early June and the way the international community reacted to this event, have together put Somaliland’s security, stability and independence at dangerous risks.

Mr. Aweys, the overall leader of the so-called Islamic Courts, is the same man who has in the last 4 years commissioned a series of terrorist operations in Somaliland for the purpose of undermining this country’s hard-won peace and homegrown democracy.

Early in this year, Aweys and 15 of his hardcore disciples were actually indicted before a court in Hargeysa for involvement in a foiled plot to a carryout a major terrorist attack in Somaliland on last September. The objectives of the attack were to disrupt Somaliland’s September 29 democratic parliamentary elections and to kidnap a number of foreign observers whose release was to be conditioned on the Somaliland government’s acceptance to set free a group of 16 men who were convicted in connection with previous terrorist attacks in Somaliland and given sentences ranging from the death penalty to life imprisonment.

Therefore it is not difficult to guess why ordinary Somalilanders should be very much concerned about their security when a guy like Aweys and his group of zealots establish themselves in power in the neighborhood. But Somaliland’s new security challenges were further complicated by a flurry of policy announcements by world governments that solely emphasized provision of an all-out support for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government as the only viable policy option for stopping the “Islamists”.

By naively rushing to the support of the TFG which is dominated by Abdillahi Yusuf’s clan, the international community has actually endorsed not only the continued occupation of Somaliland’s town of Las-Anod by Abdillahi Yusuf’s clan militia but also the TFG’s jurisdiction claims over Somaliland.

Strangely enough Somaliland President Dahir Rayale’s responses to all the above serious events have so far been none. Even last week’s reports that a group of religious zealots was trying to introduce the rule of Islamic Courts into Las-Anod has failed to elicit a response from Rayale’s government. And when the minister of Defense, Jama Gas Ma’awiye told the Somali daily Haatuf on last Monday that the government was seriously thinking of deploying Somaliland’s troops at the country’s eastern borders with Somalia, he was forced to deny having made the statement claiming instead that he has been misquoted by Haatuf.

At the domestic front, Mr. Rayale’s in-competency at the job has reached a new frightening level. The economy has been stagnant for over the last 2 years and the government has no policy to stimulate a surge. Corruption and impotency within the government are rampant as ever and the steady albeit slow improvement in social public services as witnessed in the years before Rayale came to power has taken a down-turn.

The president of the country doesn’t feel ashamed of going out to cut the ribbons for the opening of some new businesses established by hard-working individual entrepreneurs. Not a single government funded project has been inaugurated by Mr. Rayale since his election as president.

On Friday morning, Mr. Rayale has again shown his indifference to Somaliland’s integrity and independence by attending the TFG-led Somali Joint Needs Assessment without any written guarantees that donors would agree to establish a separate trust fund for Somaliland’s needs.

Somalilanders should not be surprised if they woke up one morning to find that this incumbent president has forfeited their country’s sovereignty.

Source: Somaliland Times

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